It would be easy to define Rose Plays Julie as a cross between Promising Young Woman and Killing Eve, but this psychological thriller turns the camp factor down to zero and makes even just the act of watching somebody else an existential experience. Directors Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy treat this story with stone-cold intensity (perhaps to a fault), transforming their title character from a confused girl to somebody who relishes the power they have to disrupt other people’s lives through her mere existence. There’s something eerie about it that crawls under your skin if you let it, like a ghost story told among the living.
"Every decision and every moment is loaded with complex ethical dilemmas and difficult questions about how we go about laying our personal demons to rest."
— David Jenkins
A story of a young woman searching for her biological mother. Set against a backdrop of misogyny, revenge, and longing, Rose undertakes a journey that leads her to revelations that are both devastating and dangerous.
A woman uncovers a past crime as she goes looking for her biological parents.
In the lead role, Ann Skelly at times seems impossible to read, but that's exactly how her character manages to worm her way into places she shouldn't be. Skelly's reserved performance is one part avenging angel, one part ghost of Christmas past, but she still retains an innocence and pain upon learning the dark circumstances of her character's birth and subsequent separation from her parents. She isn't an all-powerful anti-heroine, which isn't what this particular story calls for anyway. But she still manages to set things in motion, seemingly without any fear for her own safety.
Proof that you can trust in the Irish to do a better remix of what the Brits tried doing before.
"Rose, wonders about the other life she might have lived under her birth name Julie, then effectively finds herself playing the role of Julie-effectively impersonating herself."
— Jonathan Romney